Tamarac-deerfield Sewage Plan Approved

May 11, 1986|By Todd Nelson and Tom Lassiter, Staff Writers

A plan that would help the city of Tamarac increase the amount of sewage it can handle, while enabling Deerfield Beach to break even on its sewage bill, won approval from the Deerfield Beach City Commission on Tuesday.

City Manager J. Eldon Mariott, at first skeptical of the proposal, said the city had determined that it would have the excess sewage capacity Tamarac had asked to rent from the city.

Tamarac hopes to abandon its aging sewage treatment plant and join the county wastewater treatment system. To do so, however, the city must lease capacity -- in effect, access to the county system -- from cities that are part of the county system.

Tamarac City Manager Larry Perretti said the city also has reached an agreement with Pompano Beach to lease capacity from that city. Tamarac also is negotiating with Coconut Creek to lease additional capacity from that city, he said.

Deerfield Beach leases 6.8 million gallons a day of capacity from the Broward County North Regional Wastewater Facility, but uses less than five million gallons a day and isn`t expected to need its full capacity until the mid- 1990s, county officials said.

Under the agreement approved Tuesday, the city will lease one million gallons a day of its capacity at the Broward County North Regional Wastewater Facility for $6,757 a month, or $405,420 over the five-year agreement.

The agreement ``is like found money to us,`` Mariott said in a memo, because the city would have had to pay the county for the unused capacity.